Every year we seem to do raises differently. It’s a massive amount of work and in the end, there are lots of dissatisfied people (took too long, wasn’t understandable whom got what, wasn’t sufficient, etc.) Not sure if that’s a systemic thing or something I can work to correct.
Add comment March 9th, 2007
Ok, so Pete must be with me today… (for those of you don’t know, Peter Near has TERRIBLE travel karma). I go to the airport in a taxi, it’s early morning, the dude only takes cash. I don’t have any cash. I run inside to find an ATM. No ATMs. I try to find a currency exchange. I find one, it’s closed. Says go to the other terminal. I run to the other terminal. I find a currency exchange. They can’t use my debit or credit cards. Plane is leaving soon (I always tend to push my luck and sometimes it causes problems). They tell me to go back to other terminal and a different floor and talk to that currency exchange. I get money. I head back to car (it’s been like 45 minutes). Guy is still there and has been calling the office trying to get a hold of someone who can get a hold of me. I pay him and get my luggage. He leaves. I go to try to check in. Machine isn’t working properly. Issues me only half of my boarding passes (going through Heathrow). I try to find someone manning the machines to help me out. No one around. Really close to flight time. Find someone. They can’t make the machine work for my itinerary any more either. Say, I’ll just have to talk to the connection people at Heathrow. I get to Heathrow, manage to get checked through without issue. Go get a sandwich and no yellow mustard. Only English mustard. Dammit! (ok, so that’s not so much of a big deal).
Add comment March 7th, 2007
Got together to hear the TCP team plans (bringing together two of our product lines into one offering). Was a very good meeting, the team is very interesting and seems quite technically sound. Had a nice walk around the late with torches and afterwards a campfire and beer. Makes meetings much more enjoyable.
Add comment March 6th, 2007
Left Bangalore in the wee hours (as usual) and flew to Zurich (for which I had to run to catch a connection). Zurich seems very nice as a city — think it might be nice to live here. Noticed a watch that K might like while waiting for the train. Off I went cross country to Kempten to see Norbert and meet the folks at the office. The Kempten office is really nice. The town of Kempten is REALLY nice. I loved the river running through it and the theatre up on a hill in the middle of the ruins of a fort. Gave me some ideas on what we might be able to do with Waterloo Park.
Add comment March 3rd, 2007
So, I’m here in Bangalore with a large group representative of the offshore team. James, Jim, Steffen, Tony, Martin — a bunch of guys whom will all have to work with the folks here. So far we’ve seen tours of the potential office space we would use, had several late dinners (10:30pm) after really long planning work days (which, is very draining) and sat by an outdoor pool which had an inordinate number of frogs swimming in it. All in all, a different kind of trip than December (since I’m the "experienced" Indian traveller) but still enjoyable.
Add comment March 2nd, 2007
A very strange thing occurred on the plane to Bangalore today (and Tony can confirm this) — but a bunch of Italian ladies roamed through the plane asking us to give up whatever food we could spare (or didn’t eat) to give to the children in the city when we land. Or at least, that’s what seemed to be happening, I don’t speak Italian.
Add comment February 27th, 2007
Headed off to Huntington Beach today for the last of the user conferences of Hummingbird. Flew with Karen’s boss Bill (and took him into the lounge with me) which was fun since he was also heading to that Irvine area, so we passed the time talking about Centre in the Square. First time I have ever been in California (it’s really quite nice), very close to the beach and have a full suite which I’m going to use for team meetings.
Add comment February 11th, 2007
So, due to the additional responsibilities, Kirk seems to have made adjustments to cover that particular. That’s good I suppose, although money isn’t the main concern for me nowadays (although that statement makes me sound like an overpaid git).
Add comment January 31st, 2007
Took the core North American team to a Raptors game at the ACC. Overall, I am a hockey fan if anything, just didn’t find much interesting to watch. Neat to use the OTC box but it was really expensive.
Add comment January 22nd, 2007
Yesterday and today have been the worst wind I’ve ever seen in EU. Got stuck in Frankfurt because I missed a connection and thousands of us are trying to head back to North America amidst some of the most blustery conditions seen on the continent in a long time. Got a connection through Chicago (at least in the ballpark), but Chicago being what it was I got delayed for 4 hours and finally reached home 15h later than originally planned.
Add comment January 18th, 2007
Flew to Germany this week — some serious changes on the German management side, did several presentations with Kirk around the changes in structure within R&D (that not everyone is pleased with). I’ve now been given responsibility for all of the EU work as well as what I owned before — guess I’m a worldwide guy now. That is a very daunting task especially since I don’t know the German side even remotely as well as the North American side of the business. Definitely up for the challenge but I hope I can rapidly develop some significant relationships.
Add comment January 16th, 2007
So, it is particularly challenging to return to work after being off for 3 weeks, especially when you don’t have any down time between the last activity and the work week. I hope to get caught up by Thursday.
Add comment January 9th, 2007
… before the holidays. Usually I don’t work up until the last day and really try to take some time off to get my shopping done, but not this year. Quite a few people still in the office which is fun and they had a potluck lunch and movie watching session to wrap it all up. Fun stuff cause I work with a great group of people (the reason I am still there after 9 years). Looking forward to being away for a while though, getting some down time and picking up this crazy train in January. Happy holidays to everyone @ OTC.
Add comment December 22nd, 2006
Today was mom’s 60th birthday (happy birthday mom! call you soon!!) Unfortunately I’m flying pretty much the only time I can get a hold of her. I’m really really happy to be going home. 10 days away is a lot of time (no matter what fun you might be having). Meetings went well on Monday and Tuesday in the Munich office with lots of interesting stuff going on there. Going back the third week of January for even more work - not sure I want to do that, but I guess we’ll get what we get. Got on our flight home, but apparently it was “space pod class” because we didn’t have seats, we had little business-class zones. Very strange and apparently it was new to the flight attendants as well. Got my photos of the entire India trip finally uploaded.
1 comment December 19th, 2006